Up for the Challenge

Kontokosta and his team were recently selected as one of only six winners — from a field of several hundred — in the U.N. Data for Climate Action Challenge, a call to the world’s data scientists, researchers, analysts, and innovators to develop viable, data-driven climate solutions. With climate change now a global issue threatening entire ecosystems and cultures, the Challenge aims to demonstrate the transformative and vital possibilities of harnessing Big Data to address the problem.

The team developed a first-of-its kind high-resolution spatial-temporal model of urban greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, transportation systems, and point sources such as power generation facilities and industrial plants. They used a staggering array of data, including:

city records,

Department of Energy models,

information from mobile traffic apps,

high-resolution weather station records,

Twitter feeds,

Department of Transportation traffic counts, and

particulate matter concentrations from deployed sensors, among other sources.

Kontokosta will present the team’s work at the 2017 U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, this month, adding to the growing evidence of the value of big data and public-private cooperation for climate action and sustainable development.

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CUSP is a unique public-private research center that uses New York City as its laboratory and classroom to help cities around the world become more productive, livable, equitable, and resilient. CUSP observes, analyzes, and models cities to optimize outcomes, prototype new solutions, formalize new tools and processes, and develop new expertise/experts. These activities will make CUSP the world’s leading authority in the emerging field of “Urban Informatics.”